


The Last Seed

by likeabomb



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 19:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19911034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeabomb/pseuds/likeabomb
Summary: When faced with the Arbor Exemplar herself, Caduceus is conflicted. Communing with the Wildmother only gets him so far.





	The Last Seed

**Author's Note:**

> After seeing this scene in episode 65, the emotion in Caduceus' voice when he came out of the trance really spoke to me, about how much this meant to him, and just how deeply he felt about this. So I thought I'd explore that a little more deeply, delving into Caduceus' feelings about the Arbor Exemplar.

Caduceus stands, eyes wide, ears pinned back, staring up and out of the hut Caleb has conjured for them for the evening’s rest. Up, and up, and up. The tree is vast and mighty, lush with life, of the tree itself, and what has taken up residence. His hand glides down the warm rod Jester has propped up in the center of the dome, wedged just so, so that it warms the interior to fight back the bite of the frigid rain as he stands in awe of the splendor.

Hundreds of feet tall, towering over the badlands, she’s quite a sight to behold, and being in the presence of something so powerful is enough that Caduceus feels winded.

To be able to defy the death of this place, makes something in his chest squeeze.

As the rest of the party goes about their tasks, setting up bedding, tending to the moorbounders, scouting the base of the tree, and gathering kindle for a fire, Caduceus settles himself down.

Pulling his armor off a piece at a time, he takes the time to breathe, to calm, to simply exist. He sets each piece aside and breathes easily.

Sitting now, Caduceus is able to take in more. The grass underneath them is dried and dead, crisp to the touch, crunching underfoot just a bit. It’s all around the tree, and goes for quite a distance out from the roots of the great tree.

The rain patters off the top of the dome, like rain against a window. The moorbounders outside lope around, watching some of the small creatures that live in the tree before shaking themselves out and hunkering down in the shade where it’s not quite as wet yet.

Noticing his fingers running along the dead grass, both Nott and Jester take interest, peeking around at it all, feeling the grass under their hands. Nott pokes her head out of the dome to look farther, though it’s not really needed with the inner translucence of the magic. She comes back in, shaking her head and ears of the rain.

“It’s everywhere.”

Craning her head back, hands set on the ground behind her to lean her weight back on them, Jester stares up at the tree, “It’s like the tree is sucking up everything in the region and using it for itself.”

She grins, and it borders on a grimace in her ghastly take on what’s happened here. Caduceus can’t help but wince a little, looking out at it all, and the wasteland beyond.

Beau joins them, pulling her hair down to squeeze water out of it before tying it back up, still damp, but not dripping now.

“Or,” Caduceus offers quietly, “It’s hanging on, trying to beat back whatever this is.”

“It’s a vampire tree!!” Jester calls, reaching her hands up at it from under the dome.

Caduceus shakes his head at her display, her grandeur, and tries not to feel something turn in the pit of his stomach at the thought. There are always things in nature that can do some gharish things, of course, but this display of life and power, isn’t one of them. He can’t honestly believe that this spectacle could be anything but good, especially in a desolate place like these fields.

This whole situation has him fidgeting, uncertain, and not feeling very good.

“Does this look familiar to what your garden was going through?” Beau asks, looking from their firbolg friend up to the tree towering above them, it’s canopy lush and green, unlike most plants here in Xhorhas.

“I mean it- it kinda- I mean, I don’t know-” he looks down, “I have to think.”

The more he thinks about it, the more his stomach ties itself in knots. The press of his brow is starting to give him a headache.

“Can’t you heal some of the grass?” Nott asks, running her hands over it.

“It’s dead,” Caduceus squints in bewilderment.

“Well no, can’t you- you’re a cleric! Can’t you like, make it grow again?”

Jester pets her hands over the grass, cooing at it gently, coaxing it to grow. To no avail, of course, it’s dead grass. Instead she spits on it. That does about as much good.

Sitting up a little, listening to all this talk, Fjord leans over and hooks his fingers, claws and all, in under the top layer of grass and soil, peeling a chunk of it back to look at the dirt and the roots. Caduceus watches him, again, that tight feeling in his gut.

“Cad?”

“Mm. The roots look healthy. Looks recent. Like it hasn’t been dead for very long.”

Fjord sets the grass back down and Caduceus raises a hand, not in a flourish of magic, but of concern.

“Gently, please.”

Blinking up at him, Fjord nods, smoothing out the edges of where he pried the earth back.

Caleb and Yasha join them in the dome as well, drying off and getting ready for an evening in, around the little fire, in the rain on the plains. Everyone talks quietly, about things they need to do, places they need to go, people they need to get in contact with.

Caduceus closes his eyes and breathes, and the world falls away a little at a time.

At first, it’s the almost bleak feeling of the world around him. The hot, dry, barren fields, the empty sky, the sensation of the numbness of the nose and ears and fingertips from the cold winds and rain of the storm bearing down on them. It’s not the thunderstorms Yasha calls to, it’s milder, but not any less forgiving.

The sensation alone almost makes Caduceus stop.

But soon enough, it’s replaced with warmth, not of fire or magic, but of a late spring day, the sun warm, and a breeze that draws over everything, ruffling his hair and making his ears flick. An all encompassing warmth, and safety, like arms looping around him. Slowly, despite the rain, despite the unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, and despite the heavy bubbles of anxiety in his chest, Caduceus smiles.

Inside the little bubble hut, the wind too picks up. The dome wouldn’t normally let in the wind from outside. It is, instead, Caduceus’ magic. It’s subtle, enough to ruffle their hair along with his. It’s warm, and thought it draws their eyes, it’s not unpleasant. None of them have seen him commune with the Wildmother this closely before, a ritual typically reserved to time spent alone, he and his Goddess.

This place is too dangerous to really take a respite alone, and he needs answers more than he fears the prying eyes of his companions on something he holds so dear.

He trusts them.

There aren’t so much questions and answers, as much as there are sensations and feelings, emotions welling up deep inside himself. Caduceus knows from communing with Her Grace enough, especially in the quiet days the loneliness would bury itself deep in his ribs. He knows how She feels in his mind, and Her presence like a mantle of safety on his shoulders.

“Is this place yours?”

He asks without words, and She answers in kind, without proper words, but with a sensation deep in his chest of acknowledgment and agreement, a warm positive feeling curling in the bottom of his chest.

_“Yes, it is mine. My last and final seed.”_

Caduceus searches for a way to put how he feels, his assumptions of what’s happening here. Perhaps there’s a sickness, maybe a curse, maybe the tree is dying. The grass, dead and brown, just a hundred feet from the roots of this massive tree worry him. He struggles to really convey that for Her, but She understands. She’s always understood.

_“The land remains scarred. It has since we all stepped away.”_

A deep sadness wells up in Caduceus, and in his travels, he’s heard more about the last battle of the Calamity, the great war that ended here in these fields, and what was finally sealed away. Dread gnaws at his insides in a way he can’t manage to shake. This whole place reeks of more death than life, and it leaves him in awe. And not in a way he likes.

Desperation joins that dread, and all Caduceus can muster is, “Am I here to fix this?”

Before She even answers him, though, he knows. The warmth recedes a little, leaving him with a cold sensation up the back of his neck, a soft dismissal, a no.

_“It’s too big to fix.”_

The moment washes through him, and he feels an aching sadness, deep and unending. An ancient kind of sorrow.

_“Your path is your own.”_

Caduceus doesn’t realize how deeply he’d felt those things until he feels the warm wetness on his face. He opens his eyes as the magic pulls away, as the warm hands and safety of Her embrace drift away, leaving him colder than he’d like to admit.

For a moment, he thinks the dome may have sprung a leak, but he blinks the tears from his eyes, reaching to rub the tracks in his short fur away. He sniffles once.

The sadness doesn’t leave him, the hopelessness this situation leaves him with buries itself in his chest and makes it hard to breathe.

He keeps to himself the rest of the evening.

There has to be more he can do for Her, for his Mother, but Her presence around him, only to inform him that he can do nothing about this, hurts. Caduceus can’t find it in himself to be upset with Her, and he’s not, but it doesn’t feel good.

It will take time to come to terms with that, even if he doesn’t show it outwardly.

He hopes the Kiln holds more answers.


End file.
